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PanzerJaeger
04-30-2010, 06:19
Is this true? FoxNews is reporting the story as an exclusive, but I cannot find it reported on any other big news sites.

EXCLUSIVE: U.N. Elects Iran to Commission on Women's Rights (http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/29/elects-iran-commission-womens-rights/)

Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged "immodest."


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Reuters

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gestures during a speech in March 2010. Iran has been elected to the U.N.'s Commission on the Status of Women after a failed attempt to secure a seat on the Human Rights Council.
NEW YORK — Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged "immodest."

Just days after Iran abandoned a high-profile bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, it began a covert campaign to claim a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women, which is "dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women," according to its website.

Buried 2,000 words deep in a U.N. press release distributed Wednesday on the filling of "vacancies in subsidiary bodies," was the stark announcement: Iran, along with representatives from 10 other nations, was "elected by acclamation," meaning that no open vote was requested or required by any member states — including the United States.

The U.S. currently holds one of the 45 seats on the body, a position set to expire in 2012. The U.S. Mission to the U.N. did not return requests for comment on whether it actively opposed elevating Iran to the women's commission.

Iran's election comes just a week after one of its senior clerics declared that women who wear revealing clothing are to blame for earthquakes, a statement that created an international uproar — but little affected their bid to become an international arbiter of women's rights.

"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," said the respected cleric, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi.

As word of Iran's intention to join the women's commission came out, a group of Iranian activists circulated a petition to the U.N. asking that member states oppose its election.

"Iran's discriminatory laws demonstrate that the Islamic Republic does not believe in gender equality," reads the letter, signed by 214 activists and endorsed by over a dozen human rights bodies.

The letter draws a dark picture of the status of women in Iran: "women lack the ability to choose their husbands, have no independent right to education after marriage, no right to divorce, no right to child custody, have no protection from violent treatment in public spaces, are restricted by quotas for women's admission at universities, and are arrested, beaten, and imprisoned for peacefully seeking change of such laws."

The Commission on the Status of Women is supposed to conduct review of nations that violate women's rights, issue reports detailing their failings, and monitor their success in improving women's equality.

Yet critics of Iran's human rights record say the country has taken "every conceivable step" to deter women's equality.

"In the past year, it has arrested and jailed mothers of peaceful civil rights protesters," wrote three prominent democracy and human rights activists in an op-ed published online Tuesday by Foreign Policy Magazine.

"It has charged women who were seeking equality in the social sphere — as wives, daughters and mothers — with threatening national security, subjecting many to hours of harrowing interrogation. Its prison guards have beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted and raped female and male civil rights protesters."

Iran's elevation to the commission comes as a black eye just days after the U.S. helped lead a successful effort to keep Iran off the Human Rights Council, which is already dominated by nations that are judged by human rights advocates as chronic violators of essential freedoms. The current membership of the women's commission is little different.

Though it touts itself as "the principal global policy-making body" on women's rights, the makeup of the commission is mostly determined by geography and its membership is a hodge-podge of some human rights advocates (including the U.S., Japan, and Germany) and other nations with stark histories of rights violations.

The number of seats on the commission is based on the number of countries in a region, no matter how small their populations or how scant their respect for rights. The commission is currently made up of 13 members from Africa, 11 from Asia, nine from Latin America and the Caribbean, eight from Western Europe and North America, and four from Eastern Europe.

During this round of "elections," which were not competitive and in which no real votes were cast, two seats opened up for the Asian bloc for the 2011-2015 period. Only two nations put forward candidates to fill empty spots — Iran and Thailand. As at most such commissions in the U.N., backroom deals determined who would gain new seats at the women's rights body.

The activists' letter sent to the U.N. Tuesday argued that it would be better if the Asian countries proffered only one candidate, instead of elevating Iran to the commission.

"We, a group of gender-equality activists, believe that for the sake of women's rights globally, an empty seat for the Asia group on (the commission) is much preferable to Iran's membership. We are writing to alert you to the highly negative ramifications of Iran’s membership in this international body."

A spokeswoman for the U.N.'s Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which oversees the commission, did not return phone calls or e-mails seeking comment.

When its term begins in 2011, Iran will be joined by 10 other countries: Belgium, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Estonia, Georgia, Jamaica, Iran, Liberia, the Netherlands, Spain, Thailand and Zimbabwe.


In other news: Women with Suntans Face Arrest in Iran ( http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/women-with-suntans-face-arrest-in-iran/19457436)

PanzerJaeger
04-30-2010, 06:26
It appears that it is true (http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2010/ecosoc6419.doc.htm). At least Iran's influence will be balanced by that of the Congo. :dizzy2:

Megas Methuselah
04-30-2010, 06:35
Well, this is funneh.

CountArach
04-30-2010, 06:56
This (http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/member_hasteh.html) is who the UN elected to the forum. As for the commission position going to Iran that is hardly surprising given that they have a lot of other smaller states who are likely to support them as a voting bloc.

PanzerJaeger
04-30-2010, 07:12
As for the commission position going to Iran that is hardly surprising given that they have a lot of other smaller states who are likely to support them as a voting bloc.

Indeed, this is hardly surprising at all for the UN. Pathetic, disgraceful, sad...? Sure, but not surprising.

CountArach
04-30-2010, 07:21
I'll also point out that the above woman elected on Iran's behalf was on the commission in the past, meaning that she has experience. The commission she was a part of had some incredibly progressive findings, even by western standards. She was also US-educated, and thus exposed to western liberalism.

Trying to make anything out of this story is utterly ridiculous.

EDIT: Though I do want to make this absolutely clear - I loathe Iran's stances on women's issues, I just think that this particular story is a bit of a waste of time.

PanzerJaeger
04-30-2010, 07:42
Trying to make anything out of this story is utterly ridiculous.



Women's rights activists seem to disagree (http://www.unpo.org/content/view/11047/89/).

Crazed Rabbit
04-30-2010, 08:40
I guess they wanted balance between countries who recognize women as equal and those who legalize stoning for 'immoral' behavior. We wouldn't want to discriminate or somehow imply one culture is more worthy than another.

CR

CountArach
04-30-2010, 09:22
Women's rights activists seem to disagree (http://www.unpo.org/content/view/11047/89/).
And they are welcome to that opinion, I just think that some there are other battles that are more worth fighting.

rory_20_uk
04-30-2010, 10:12
Countries without a poor track record on issues can't be bothered wasting the political capital to get elected. Only the countries that are concerned about getting a poor image go for the places.
So, expect China, Burma and Sudan on the Human Right's Panel
Saudi Arabia to investigate Alternate Energy and Women's Rights.
Afghanistan and Nigeria to be on the Commission on reducing corruption.
Japan on the Whale Fishing Board.

~:smoking:

Fragony
04-30-2010, 11:24
UN human rights commissions are like the Nobel peace price if you look at the country's in it, this wouldn' surprise at all.

Seamus Fermanagh
04-30-2010, 13:36
I guess they wanted balance between countries who recognize women as equal and those who legalize stoning for 'immoral' behavior. We wouldn't want to discriminate or somehow imply one culture is more worthy than another.

CR

Sounds like the same reasoning that got Charlie Wilson on the House Ethics Committee. Wilson told then-speaker O'Neill that he didn't have anyone on the committee who liked women and whisky and shouldn't that view be represented as well?

Sasaki Kojiro
04-30-2010, 18:06
What do all these committees do anyway? On the wiki page it says the women's rights campaign succeeded in getting gender neutral language put in the declaration of human rights. What else?

Tellos Athenaios
04-30-2010, 19:04
Those committees are essentially what a subforum is on the ORG, nothing more. However, some have a rather more noticeable organization working behind/in tandem with them, the likes of which are: UNICEF, UNHCR, WHO.